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music |
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belle & sebastian - roy walker |
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It's official: you guys have entered into my unconscious!
How do I know this?
Well, I had a dream featuring Kate, Myff and Anna...
I don't really remember the start, but this is what I do recall.
For some reason we were all on a stage with instruments, and the background of the stage kept changing, having things projected onto it. We wrote some songs together and performed them just by ourselves, and for some reason I was playing drums (probably because I can play drums), but I can't recall who was doing what else. I do remember that the music we wrote was actually quite good, and this seemed a signal to me that something was seriously off kilter.
Anyway, it came time for us to perform for an audience, and for some reason instead of us performing, we were all supposed to SIT in the audience and watch the stage change. Like I can't describe how the backdrop looked, but it was like... liquid television, and it was beautiful.
This guy I used to know in high school, Matt Silovic*, was there, and he was trying to sit between Kate and I in the audience, and for some reason, Myff was sitting off by herself, closer to the stage (Kate and I were off to the back, on the side) and Anna had disappeared.
We tried to convince Myff to sing -- I mean, none of us were very proficient at our part of performing -- but she refused, and threw a bit of a tantrum.
At this point, Kate disappeared too, and I had the sense that she was extremely depressed. Matt followed me to Kate's house, and Kate was in her room, cutting, and she was about to try and kill herself when we intervened. We took her back to the theatre, to sit in the audience with Myff and Anna (who had reappeared, but wasn't saying anything), but she still seemed on the verge of really hurting herself, and I was really scared. It was really ominous -- we kept trying to stop Kate from cutting and from trying to kill herself, but we seemed really ineffectual.
The stage got stuck on one background, and it looked like an abstract painting... the kind that gets described as a triumph of colour and texture rather than actually looking like something in particular... like say, a Rothko. It was pretty, and sort of golden. It reminded me of the CD cover for Soundgarden's Down On The Upside.
Anyway, the dream ended with all of us sitting in the audience, instruments on stage, with Myff refusing to sing, and Kate wanting to hurt herself, and Anna saying nothing... and me having no real concept of how I was.
The End.
*= Matt Silovic is forever remembered in my mind for the fact that, after living in Queensland for 18 months, I came back to Melbourne and my childhood best friend, Julia, called him, and when she put me on the phone, he said, "so, dina, still a slut?" (I was 15.) I remember him taunting me quite a bit throughout year 7 and 8.
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Furthermore, I had my centrelink assessment today for DSP. I had a panic attack in the waiting area, and one of the staff (a cutely tubby Asian lady) at the reception came over because I'd been waiting for a long time and she saw I was freaking out (psychomotor agitation, grinding my teeth, hyperventilating AND rocking -- and none of it put on). She gave me a glass of water, patted me on the shoulder, and then went and told the assessor that I was both waiting, and having a panic attack. The assessor was a weird guy. His name was David Lane -- which makes me think of both John Lane from Albert Road, and David -- and he spoke strangely and had the hugest toupee I've ever seen... it seemed combed from the back, rather than the front or the side... and it was really thick. He spoke strangely -- he had an Australian accent but it was still difficult to understand him, he sort of mumbled, but in a really strong voice. He barely moved his lips to speak and I wondered if he could have been a ventriloquist. His lips were really thick too, and protruded like he was suffering from a neurological disorder. I was incredulous because he could barely seem to articulate his words.
He asked me what I plan to do, and I told him about Nursing, and he spent 20 minutes lecturing me on how he thought it would be too stressful for me... it was totally weird. He told me how he used to be a psychiatrist -- he intuited that I wanted to be a psych nurse -- and that it was way too stressful for him, and told me perhaps I shouldn't do it... but then kept backtracking and saying maybe I could handle it, maybe I couldn't. Then he told me I should study teaching -- I revealed I DID study teaching, but that it was scary for me. He proceeded to try and convince me that maybe I should go and try again, especially with my English degree.
He vaguely mentioned my Dysthymia and PTSD about four times... but kept going back to Nursing, asking the difference between a Div 1 and Div 2 and whether they were the same as Registered vs Enrolled... and I explained like three times, wondering what it had to do with whether I was fit to work full-time... he kept insisting that it was really stressful...
The only questions he asked me about my mental health were: "is therapy helping? does it feel like it's working?" I replied, "yes, but I still have a long way to go." and "Are you staying away from drugs and alcohol?" to which I replied, "yes, but I have had a few lapses." (Another lie.) I explained the ARCH/D&A;/one-on-one system... explained I was on newstart and that looking for work would interfere with therapy, especially when I have 16 contact hours a week.
He also told me that working in psychiatry and medicine really informed him that his own problems were nothing, and so made him unsympathetic when his wife complained about things, and that he often thought she was a hypochondriac when she complained... I was like, nodding and smiling thinking, "WTF?"
The tubby Asian lady came in to tell him his next appointment was there -- he hadn't closed the door, for a start -- and so he finished up, though he couldn't seem to stop himself from talking about nursing and psychiatry, by telling me that he was going to say I should be on DSP, and he's going to write I have problems with all the things usually associated with depression. He said it's by no means definite that I'll get the DSP, but he will do his best.
I left, thinking, "WHAT A WEIRD, SCARY MAN."
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